[IMC-UK-Features] Request for upload as Main UK Feature

[ana]

Hi,

it is not a news-item it is a call for action. (unless i've got to the
wrong article)

Calls for action do not go to the middle column ... do they?

ana

Mark wrote:
> Requesting that the following news-item
> Ref: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/05/398884.html
> (copied below) be promoted as a main feature on the UK-IMC site
>
> - Note it is in 2 sections, the first section is taken from Aseed & the
> 2nd can be linked directly at:
> http://www.ukfg.org.uk/docs/FoodCrisisUpdate14May2008.pdf
>
> Link to the action call of Via Campesina:
> http://www.viacampesina.org/main_en/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=519&Itemid=37
>
>
>
>
>
> Ref: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/05/398884.html
>
>
> Call for action to protect biodiversity, family farms & stop privatisation
> & the loss of more land to monoculture at the UN Biodiversity Summit in
> Bonn, Germany - 16-30 May.
> Driving out small farmers and peasants, genetic manipulation,
> deforestation, use of pesticides ...it will all be at stake at this
> Summit.
> Ref: www.aseed.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=563&Itemid=1
>
>
>
> Call for action at the UN Biodiversity Summit in Bonn, Germany - 16-30th May:
>
> In full it is about the ‘The 4th Meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena
> Protocol on Biosafety (MOP4) and the 9th Conference of the Parties (COP9)
> to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)’. The MOP (12-16 May) is
> about (the spread of) gene technology and the COP (19-30 May) is about
> virtually everything else that deals with biological diversity.
>
> Join the protests and other events! As agro multinationals will also use
> the opportunity for massive lobbying.
>
> Groups from Germany and beyond are actively working on the organisation of
> various actions and other happenings. The CBD will be used to show the
> public, media and the present delegations that a different type of
> agriculture and consumption are necessary to solve food related social and
> ecological problems. A top on biodiversity is not just about red-listed
> species. It is also about:
> * small farmers losing their land due to the expansion of plantations and
> monoculture fields;
> * the introduction of biodiesel at the expense of local food supply; gene
> technology and patents on crops, meaning that farmers and local
> communities lose control over their own food supply;
> * nature parks as compensation for our industrial society, which again
> harms the original inhabitants of the place; and
> * the role of multinationals in all this.
>
> (More topics are on the agenda, but you can find a full overview yourself
> at the CBD website).
> Enough reasons for us not to let this international top pass by unnoticed!
>
> Planned activities:
> Below you can find an overview of the planned actions in Bonn. But it is
> most likely that not everything is publicly announced and there will be
> enough space for spontaneous initiatives.
>
> Saturday morning 17 May: Action against gene technology and patents on
> crops. This will be exciting, but we can not say much more on this. You
> can find more on this topic in the latest German newsletter Kaperbrief ;
>
> Sunday 18 May: Agrofuel action day. That large scale cultivation of fuel
> crops is disastrous for food supply and the position of small farmers is
> obvious. But the production of it still continues, also during this
> UN-top. With an action in the streets we will try to reach the population
> of Bonn, and make them more sensible than the business world and
> politicians who refuse to talk about a radical reduction of energy use in
> ‘the West’.
>
> Monday morning 19 May: Opening of COP9, accompanied by a demonstration of
> Via Campesina and their solidarity friends in front of the entrance to the
> conference. This must show that until now, similar conferences have not
> taken account of the interests of small farmers sufficiently
> - link to the action call of Via Campesina:
>  http://www.viacampesina.org/main_en/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=519&Itemid=37
>
> Monday afternoon 19 May: Presentation of the Captain Hook Award for
> corporations that managed to get hold of patents in the most scandalous
> manner, the true bio-pirates! (Only accessible for people with an
> accreditation to the conference).
>
> Monday evening 19 May: Action to return the looted seeds back to farmers
> in the South. In the city centre of Bonn.
>
> Friday 23 May: Action against bio-piracy in front of the conference hall.
> In favour of free accessible knowledge.
>
> 28-30 May: Ministers and heads of states will be flown in for the last
> three days of the top. This is the period during which most important
> decisions will be taken. Also the moment to bring possibly dangerous and
> anti-social developments under the attention of the media and the general
> public. More information will follow later and flexibility will be
> required.
>
> From 12 till 16 May the alternative NGO congress Planet Diversity will
> take place. More on this can be found at: www.planet-diversity.org.
>
> Sleeping places and food:
> In and about Bonn several places are arranged to spend the night. Although
> it will be a bit of a puzzle. From Friday evening 16 May till Tuesday
> morning 20 May some people can put up a tent next to the farm Gut Ostler,
> next to Bonn. This will be the place where the international delegation of
> Via Campesina will reside as well. As most people will be expected to come
> to this weekend, some people can also be accommodated in some houses in
> Bonn and Koln. During the days before the action weekend it will probably
> not be any problem to roll out a mattress at a media activist’s house in
> Bonn.
>
> Information point:
> For all updates on activities, sleeping places and follow up on the
> political games being played inside the conference, you can visit the
> information point. This is situated in the Oscar Romero-house, Heerstrasse
> 205. You can reach this house by walking on the right side of track from
> Bonn Central Station, 800 meters to the North. Check:
> www.oscar-romero-haus.de.
>
> Biotech.indymedia.org
> Preceding and during the Biodiversity conference new announcements, action
> reports and articles about current affairs at the conference will be
> posted on: biotech.indymedia.org. Here you an also publish reports, images
> of actions and relevant articles yourself.
>
> All this is the initiative of Aktionsnetzwerk globale Landwirtschaft, Via
> Campesina, A SEED Europe, INKOTA, BUKO Kampagne gegen Biopiraterie,
> Corporate Europe Observatory, Netzwerk freies Wissen, Bonner AK gegen
> Gentechnologie and several active individuals. Don’t feel hold back to
> join us. Come to Bonn.
>
> **************************************************************
>
> The following is written by the UK Food Group:
> Ref:  http://www.ukfg.org.uk/docs/FoodCrisisUpdate14May2008.pdf
>
>
> FOOD CRISIS UPDATE
> This global food crisis has been a long time in the making. For more than
> 30 years hunger has been endemic among the poor, especially those living
> in rural areas. Farmers, pastoralists and fisherfolk have been
> increasingly dispossessed of their livelihoods as well as their land,
> grazing, fishing grounds and markets; grain stocks have been run down as
> the globalisation agenda has been imposed by the wealthy.
>
> Governments, including those in the global South, and intergovernmental
> organisations must now recognize their part in implementing policies that
> have undermined agricultural productivity and destroyed national food
> security. The emergency today has its roots in the food crisis of the
> 1970s when some opportunistic OECD governments, pursuing neoliberal
> policies, dismantled the international institutional architecture for food
> and agriculture.
>
> These governments and their institutions adopted short-term political
> strategies that neglected food and agriculture and set the stage for the
> current food emergency.
>
> For the view of farmers, see the Press Release by Via Campesina, the
> International Peasant Movement “Food crisis: we cannot gamble with food!”
> www.viacampesina.org/main_en/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=529&Itemid=1
>
> While there are food riots and extreme hardship among the poor, corporate
> players are profiting.
> ·Cargill, the major global grain trader announced increased profits for
> the first quarter of this year of 86% (See Claire Melamed’s article
> commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/claire_melamed/2008/04/feasting_on_famine.html);
> ·Speculators are betting on food price rises (See yesterday’s FT article
> Speculators accumulate as risks rise for world's poor, by Tony Jackson
> www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e299bd06-1fbc-11dd-9216-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1
> );
> ·International institutions are using this opportunity to press
> globalisation on the poor – the very same pressures are behind the crisis
> (See, for example, interview with Peter Mandelson 8 May
> www.bbc.co.uk/newsa/n5ctrl/progs/08/hardtalk/mandelson_08may.ram ); and
> ·Offers of more of the same (proprietary) technical fixes are pouring out
> thick and fast from the UN, world Bank, biotech industry and the new
> philanthro-capitalists despite the warnings from the UN/World Bank IAASTD
> report that a different approach is necessary (See Change in farming can
> feed world www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/16/food.biofuels )
>
> There is an intense Civil Society process in Bonn for the next three weeks
> (in parallel with the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) meetings on
> Biosafety (MOP4) and Biodiversity (COP9)) that will express its concerns
> and offer solutions at the FAO High Level Food Crisis Conference in Rome
> (3-5 June). These will be followed up during the subsequent High Level
> Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Accra (4 – 6 September), the MDG High Level
> Event on 25 September in New York and at the FAO committee on world food
> security in Rome in October.
> Through the IPC for Food Sovereignty, the CBD Alliance, and the campaign
> for More and Better aid to agriculture, the UK Food Group is indirectly or
> directly involved in all these processes.
> For the next 3 weeks, Patrick Mulvany will be in Bonn and then Rome for
> the UN and civil society meetings. Updates will be available online
> through the websites linked above and on www.ukabc.org.
>
>
>
>
> --
> Indymedia United Kollektives editorial: features and wire moderation
> http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-uk-features
>